Fellowship

The Global Pediatrics Program offers a post-graduate fellowship program in global health, in collaboration with Partners In Health. Fellows combine work at PIH and Ministry of Health Hospitals in Haiti and Rwanda with clinical and course work in Boston. While abroad, fellows work with Rwandan and Haitian colleagues to improve the quality of pediatric services. Fellows share their clinical experience through bedside and didactic teaching, and work with local staff to implement specific programs and projects. Over the last year, areas of focus for the fellows have included pediatric HIV, prevention of vertical HIV transmission, neonatology, oncology, and care of children with chronic and non-communicable disease.

This focus on global health service delivery provides critical support to our partner sites in Haiti and Rwanda, and provides fellows with an opportunity to develop skills and experience in clinical care in low resource settings, in medical education, and in program design, management, and evaluation.

Recent updates can be found here.

Fellowship Components

Global Pediatric Fellows rotate in 6 month blocks between Boston and either Haiti or Rwanda over a 2 year period.

Partners In Health provides airfare between Boston and either Haiti or Rwanda, and room and board in-country.

While at Children’s Hospital in Boston, pediatricians work clinically as hospitalists and have the opportunity to attend regular lectures and seminars on relevant global health topics. In addition, fellows attend a 3 week summer program in global health at Harvard School of Public Health.

Application

We welcome candidates with interests in:

Collaborative learning

Teaching and mentorship

Commitment to the improvement of healthcare within the public sector

Community outreach, primary care, hospital based tertiary care

Social justice

The ideal candidate will have the following qualifications:

Board-certification or Board-eligibility in pediatrics or medicine-pediatrics

A desire to gain experience with health care delivery in a resource-poor country (Haiti, Rwanda, or Liberia.)

A talent for teaching and an interest in medical education as well as monitoring and evaluation

Fellow Bios

Jill Veselik

Jill Veselik, M.D., received her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, her medical degree from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, IL. She is board certified in pediatrics and is a recipient of Loyola’s Magis Spirit Award and Mullins Scholarship. Dr. Veselik has volunteered at the American Diabetes Association Teen Camp, the Chapin Street Clinic in South Bend, and volunteered in various international medical missions. Jill was recently accepted as the pediatric global health fellow at Boston Childrens' Hospital. In her spare time, she enjoys long-distance running, competing in triathlons and reading.

Chris Carpenter

"I was raised in a suburb of San Francisco and had a very “normal” childhood. However, as I finished high school in the midst of the Rwandan Genocide my life changed. The atrocities portrayed on television were heart wrenching and motivated me to search for a way to make a difference.

I wandered through academia for my first few years of college but by the time I was 20 years-old, I decided the best way for me to help the less fortunate was to work as a doctor. Then during medical school and residency, I had opportunities to live my dream. I found short-term work in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Cameroon.

After residency, I decided to work in the developing world full-time. My first assignment was with a small organization working in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the HEAL Africa Hospital, I focused on training pediatric residents, establishing a neonatal intensive unit and improving inpatient pediatric care.

However, after completing my project in Goma, I realized that I needed further training to make a larger impact. I knew how to treat diseases and teach about treatment plans, but I wanted to become more proficient in managing large projects and advocating for the needs of my patients. Therefore, in 2011 I decided to join the Children’s Hospital Boston Pediatric International Health Fellowship."

Sara Gonzalez

Sara Gonzalez is a global pediatrics fellow at Boston Children's Hospital with an interest in applying QI methodology to improve delivery of healthcare in resource-limited settings. She graduated in 2004 from University of Scranton with a BS in Neuroscience and Philosophy. She then attended Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine - California. She went on to complete her pediatrics residency at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville PA, where she began learning and applying QI methodology to improve delivery of pediatric care within the hospital system. During that time she worked in Honduras and Namibia with Geisinger's support. She began her Global Pediatrics fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital/Partners in Health in 2011.

Dr. Gonzalez is a board-certified osteopathic pediatrician. She was a participant in the Global Health Delivery program at Harvard School of Public Health in 2011 and looks forward to completing further studies in the area of global health delivery. She attended the Haitian Creole Summer Institute at University of Massachusetts Boston in 2011 and plans to continue her study of Creole at University of Massachusetts in 2012. Her current work in partnership with Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante in St. Marc, Haiti is focused on improving systems of care in pediatrics in a community hospital setting, particularly in relation to delivery of neonatal care and malnutrition.

FXB Fellows

The intent of this fellowship program is to develop capacity in leveraging pediatric expertise to improve child health in low resource settings by supporting early work by faculty and fellows at Children’s Hospital Boston in addressing significant challenges to child health in low resource settings

Selection and Terms of Work:

Fellows will be selected based on potential contribution of their proposed work in addressing significant health issues for children in low resource global settings. Proposals considered will include research, training and service initiatives. Proposals should have a well defined scope of work, strong in country partnerships, and a clear plan for evaluating the impact of the work. Additional selection criteria will be the potential for this level of support to contribute significantly to the development of faculty or fellows in area of global child health.

Fellows will be selected by a committee composed of faculty from the Center for Global Pediatrics.

Eligibility

Fellows and junior faculty at Children’s Hospital Boston will be eligible to apply for this fellowship.

Application Process:

Applications will be accepted until Sept 30, with Notification by October 15.
Interested applications should submit a 2 – 3 page proposal and a budget with justification to ton.tran@childrens.harvard.edu.
The award period will run from Oct 2012 – June 2013.

Outcomes:

Measures will include:

Satisfactory completion of proposed project by the fellow

Impact on health of population served

Reports, presentation, or publications

Impact on career trajectory of fellow, including specific skills gained, continuance of the project, future funding.

Reporting

The fellows will provide a brief interim summary of the status of the project at the mid point of the award, and will provide a written summary of the project at the completion of the award period. In addition, the fellow will present the work in progress at a Children’s Hospital Center for Global Pediatrics Rounds and at the FXB Center wide works in progress seminar. Fellows biographies and a project summary will be displayed on the FXB and CHB global health program web sites.